Open Source Vireio Perception VR Project Closing In On DX11 Support
Earlier, I reported about vorpX (software that lets you play games on a VR HMD that weren't designed for VR) getting an update, and in that report I stated that it was the only software we knew about that made this work. Shortly after we published that article, Neil Schneider, director of the Immersive Technology Alliance (the group that hosts Immersed) and president of "Meant to be Seen," informed me that Vireio Perception has actually been around for multiple years and offers a function similar to what vorpX offers.
The Vireio Perception driver originated on the MTBS3D forums. It was first authored by Andres Hernandez, who has since gone on to join Oculus VR as its community manager. He's no longer with the project, but the work he started on MTBS continues to this day. Despite working completely on a volunteer basis, the group of developers who continued the project have managed to be first to market with many features. Schneider said Vireio Perception was the first to offer head tracking for injected VR games, and it has been offering support for Asynchronous Timewarp and Direct Mode for some time now.
Vireio perception also boasts some features that the competition doesn't have yet. The driver uses game engine technology to deliver low latency tracking and other benefits such as adjusting the FOV in games that don't offer that feature. The group calls this VR Boost.
The next step for Vireio Perception is DX11 support, which is being actively worked on right now. MTSB released a video showing the driver functioning in Bioshock, with a disclaimer stating that what is shown is still early and does not represent the final product.
Vireio Perception Alpha 2 is the latest version of the software available, which was released in late July, but Schneider assured me that there are more releases on the way and even suggested we could see another first from Vireio Perception.
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Kevin Carbotte is a contributing writer for Tom's Hardware who primarily covers VR and AR hardware. He has been writing for us for more than four years.
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eldragon0 It's great to give news on these topics, but I don't know exactly how excited we should be about a now outdated api being ALMOST supported. VR is seriously going to need DX12 in order to truely shine. The ability to leverage ram from both gpu's the significantly lower latency ability if coded for it. Those are two big ones, but there are a lot more.Reply